Roger Troutman of ZAPP uses a DX100 on stage with him that's connect to his talkbox. Can any one tell me what FM Synthesis on the Dx100 he is using to created his talkbox sound?

[This message has been edited by Paul Eagle (edited 08-31-1999).]

Did you see that performance? Was he using a breath controller? Did it look like he had the 2 hooked up to interact? You're talking FM synthesis so it's which algorithm(s) rather than which waveform...also the DXs modulations can be varied widely and more than one can control the same thing. Go back to Harmony Central reviews and read the reports on the DX100 and DX21(functionally the same) then try to find a website for Troutman or the band (use something besides Yahoo- I tried that already) have fun.mn

Me again, when I get my DX7 set up again I'm going to look into that sound... I'd start with the alg. that has all 4 ops. in a stack; set the feedback high (>5) on op.4 and have breath controller wired to output for all ops. but at different sensitivity. Set op.2 to a whole number ratio and op.3 to something uneven. Maybe have one of op.2 thru .4 also output modulated by square wave LFO, rate of which is controlled by breath cont? Just hoping to give you something to jump off from if you don't get the story from the source. Look for results of my hacking in the YAMAHA forum.Tho might take awhile.mn

There are a couple of simple ways that this could be done. One would be to simply use a vocoder in conjunction with the DX100. The other would be to just run the DX100 or any sound for that matter into a conventional guitarist's sealed speaker talk box (a la Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck etc). FM through one of those would sound very cool, though those things will vibrate your filling out over time .... really !!!

But credos to Mike for working on programing it, as those sort of sounds are certainly possible using FM. One of the early Yamaha promotional demonstrations featured a DX7 counting to 10. In fact the recent FS1R from Yamaha with advanced FM and formant shaping is supposed to be excellent at vocal and vowel type sounds.

As for new synths, you may want to look (deep) into a K2500. One of the factory preset sounds uses a saw wave, an LPF, an LP Res modified by an LFO (and a few other tricky modulators) to produce a distinct "buzz off", actually more like "buzz ouuuw".